The major theme of the play is the fight of Good vs. Evil. Although
evil, the characters of Edmund, Goneril, and Regan, have the upper hand
for most of the plot and cause the deaths of Cordelia, Lear, and Gloucester.
At the end of the play though, there is hope that good will prevail. The
evil characters have been removed and the worthy Edgar has been made the
new ruler of the kingdom. As a result, there is hope that a new order
will replace the chaos that has been fully explored in the play.

Filial Ingratitude

The traditional values that make the parent-child relationship
natural and wholesome are distorted and destroyed in this play.
The order and harmony that usually characterize a stable family are
disrupted by the evil designs of the greedy Edmund, Goneril, and
Regan. Lear and Gloucester are both trusting fathers. They
foolishly believe the words of their evil children and banish the
offspring that truly love them. As a result of their lack of
judgement, both fathers are made destitute by their unappreciative
children. The filial greed and ingratitude shown by Edmund,
Regan, and Goneril bring immense suffering to all.

Unfortunately, Lear is the cause of his own problems. He has
decided to abdicate the throne and divide the kingdom between his
three daughters based on a "love-test." The test takes into account
the words used to profess love but not the deeds themselves. As a
result, the flattery used by his elder daughters, Goneril and Regan,
pleases the King's vanity and massages his ego. In contrast, his ire
is roused by the brief but truthful words of his youngest daughter,
Cordelia. Lear proves that he is too vain and self-centered to
understand his own children and he pays dearly for the mistake,
eventually losing his self-respect, his power, and his sanity. In the
subplot, Gloucester is guilty of the same misjudgment, blessing
Edmund and banishing Edgar.

Goneril and Regan, filled with greed and jealousy, take pleasure in
plotting the demise of Lear. They enjoy deliberately humiliating the King
without a trace of pity or sympathy. Devoid of love for him, the two sisters
show that they are ungrateful, insulting, and threatening to the father
who gave them both land and power. They then become jealous of the power
of each other and plot the other's death. In a similar manner, Edmund,
the treasonous son of Gloucester, denounces his father and paves the way
for his blinding by Cornwall. Their filial ingratitude of the three characters
leads to total chaos and destruction in the play. At the end, however,
nature takes its revenge when Lear's daughters and Edmund receive the
retribution due to them for their filial ingratitude.

Self-realization

In the beginning of the play, Lear is depicted as an absolute monarch,
used to having exactly what he desires. Unfortunately, he does not always
act in a wise manner. Afflicted by rapid changes of mood, his actions
are often a result of his whims and fancies. His self-centeredness and
his vanity prevent him from judging his own children correctly and his
false ego blinds him to their true natures. His pride allows him to see
only that which he wishes to acknowledge. As a result, when Cordelia,
his youngest and favorite daughter, gives her father a truthful answer
that does not flatter him, he is infuriated. Accustomed to implicit obedience
from everyone, especially his daughters, he loses all self-control and
banishes her. The King's poor judgement and his own reaction to it show
that Lear can be a violent and unrestrained man.

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His elder daughters, to whom he had so rashly given away his wealth
and powers, strip Lear of everything, leaving him emotionally and physically
destitute. He reaches the depths of his despair when he is left exposed
to the furies of nature without shelter. As he reaches a wretched hovel
to find protection, his earlier defiance and anger fade away. Growing
philosophic, he thinks that the fury of the storm is more bearable than
the cruelties shown by his daughters. The pain that he feels over their
humiliation of him drives him to the verge of madness. Amazingly, Lear's
great suffering leads to a gradual change in his basic nature. He slowly
and painfully begins to accept the errors of his ways and change his perspective
of life. He is moved to compassion at the sight of the poor and defenseless
souls with whom he now empathizes. He laments the injustice of the rich
enjoying comfort and luxury while the poor and helpless creatures of the
world struggle against the cruelties of life. By the end of the play,
Lear's self-realization has made him more patient and wise. He proves
that he has been chastened and mellowed, no longer tyrannical in power
or violent in temper as he was in the beginning of the play.

Redemption

The play also centers on the theme of redemption, both to individuals
and to society. Lear and Gloucester begin the play as selfish, proud and
self-centered men. Their misjudgment of their own children opens the doors
to evil. During the process of the play, however, they both undergo a
transformation from spiritual blindness to wisdom and insight. The new
knowledge about themselves and the world around them leads them to an
acknowledgement of their own errors, an understanding of humanity, and
an identification with the less fortunate people in society. As a result,
both men redeem themselves and die in peace, after reconciling with their
banished children. The evil released by Lear and Gloucester, in the personages
of Edmund, Goneril, and Regan, is subdued with their deaths of all of
them. With the evil forces conquered, society can redeem itself and return
to order instead of chaos.

Madness

Insanity in "King Lear" is presented as a trio, consisting
of Lear's descent into insanity due to the external circumstances of his
life, Edgar's faked madness as a survival strategy, and the Fool's apparent
madness that in actuality harbors a wit and intelligence. Lear's madness
is most clearly depicted in the play; it develops in four stages. First,
he is seen as an all-powerful, egotistic monarch, filled with wrath and
fury when he does not get his way. When he suffers humiliation at the
hands of Goneril and Regan, his chosen heirs, he is enraged and pushed
to the point of madness. During the third stage, Lear is clearly unstable,
as he hallucinates and stages an imaginary trial of his two elder daughters.
The lunacy continues for Lear until Cordelia's loving care brings him
partially back to sanity and the real world. Cordelia's hanging, however,
is too much for the King to bear, and he dies beside her lifeless body.

Unlike Lear's real, intense madness, Edgar's lunacy is feigned. When
he decides to disobey his banishment and stay in England, he disguises
himself for protection. He pretends to be a poor, insane beggar named
Tom. In his disguise, he undergoes mistreatment and begins to understand
the plight of those who are truly insane; therefore, when he see the pathetic
King, ranting, raving, and hallucinating, he identifies with him and has
great pity for his pathetic state. The Fool is a character who is meant
to portray insanity, but underneath his foolery and meaningless sentences
are found a great wisdom.